Neil Degrasse Tyson

[Dystopia]

Yeah, OBVIOUSLY. To you, maybe. How about let OP clarify what he OBVIOUSLY meant? (apologies if he already did)

I can tell you're a law student -_-

I'll take that as a compliment but seriously the OP wasn't implying we are all one big movement with a church, to suggest that is wrong because there's no rational basis.

Are you serious right now, or do you just enjoy disagreeing?

Christianity is a whole set of ideas, not just that Jesus was a god. Don't pretend like it isn't, it's dishonest. Its an entire religion, with organizational structures and hierarchy and doctrines. Atheism, on the other hand, is a disbelief and nothing more. Do you honestly not see the fucking difference?

No, it is simply the belief that Jesus was a messiah and was divine, that's a core belief that describes a follower of Christ. The organizational structures, the bible, commandments, rules, ideologies are all optional and people have the right to choose which ones they prefer. A religion is simply a spiritual or else ideological or metaphysical belief that people have in common, but it's a too broad concept. The Pope doesn't have political power outside the Vatican, he can only tell people what he thinks is right and wrong, and people can obey or not according to their will and morality, etc - You don't need to go to church to be a Christian so churches are not a fundamental component of Christianity. All you need is the core belief. That's the only thing guaranteed to be common ground on Christians but aside from that there's Christians will all kinds of disagreements inside christianity and religion itself. I never said that both were equal (disbelief and belief) but to suggest a simply common belief brings common ground is incorrect because it doesn't, otherwise we wouldn't have so many christian sects, some of them completely contradictory to each other. A lack of belief can bring people together as well, it's not so much if there is a holy book or commandments but if those people feel the need to search for someone similar to them, organize themselves in groups and make points or protests about a cause they care about. The fact atheists don't have a holy book or a Pope isn't as important as what (I'm talking about organized atheists only) they do in practice and how they behave - You don't need a holy book to engage in stupidity and you can make up social rules without writing them down. For example, while there isn't a commandment about this I'm going to suggest with reasonable certainty that in some organized atheist circles it is probably very objectionable to suggest religion might actually do good as well - And this is an example of how social groups create rules and groupthinking. No group should be unchecked, and the idea that groups organized around disbelief shouldn't be criticized is bad because it leaves them unchecked and free to roam around. To think one social group, even if it's a group of nonbelievers, is different, is what allows groups to behave badly in the first place.

Non-belief isn't equivalent to belief, that was never my point - I know the difference - It was just that belief doesn't unite and allow us to make assumptions as much as people think - Churches, holy books and rules are optional compared to core beliefs and you can't assume every X inside Y religion will follow them because it comes down to personal choices. Groups of religious people unite themselves because they share common goals, but that's not mandatory to be religious, and groups of non believers, deists or any other social group can unite themselves as well, and all of them can create dogmas, unquestionable principles and behave immorally. You may think that the bible is holy for most Christians, but what if I told you that some followers of Dawkins take the God Delusion as something very close to a bible, not in a spiritual sense but as if the book had all the answers about religion and they don't need to read any other books because they already know everything about religious people? Do you think this is a mentality that ought to be supported?